


hand in your aprons

by elisela



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Masterchef, Soft Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25677529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisela/pseuds/elisela
Summary: “Uh, I think there’s been a mistake,” Buck says, looking at the producer. “Bobby’s from the 118 with me, not—what’d you say his name was?”“Eddie Diaz, and it’s no mistake,” Samantha snaps. “You think it’s fun for our audience to watch people who know how to work together? Find your partner and get to your station.”Buck opens his mouth, closes it again. “But Bobby—”“Yourstation,” she repeats, sounding irritated, and Buck bites back the protest on his lips.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 432





	hand in your aprons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [extasiswings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/gifts), [letmetellyouaboutmyfeels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/gifts).



> Chapel and Mads kept talking about a MasterChef AU and .... sigh.

“Uh, I think there’s been a mistake,” Buck says, looking at the producer. “Bobby’s from the 118 with me, not—what’d you say his name was?”

“Eddie Diaz, and it’s no mistake,” Samantha snaps. “You think it’s fun for our audience to watch people who know how to work together? Find your partner and get to your station.”

Buck opens his mouth, closes it again. “But Bobby—”

“Your _station_ ,” she repeats, sounding irritated, and Buck bites back the protest on his lips. 

He looks around for Bobby, ready to appeal to him—it’s a first responders special event, station captains should have _some_ sort of pull, shouldn’t they?—only to hear the beginnings of a complaint behind him.

“We already came with partners; why do that if you’re just going to switch us all up?”

He recognizes Lena Bosko right away; he’s only worked with her a handful of times but it was enough to know what a stubborn badass she was, and if anyone knows who Eddie Diaz is, it would be her, given that she bounced between so many houses after the tsunami. He makes his way towards them, stepping past Bobby—talking to a woman in an LAPD shirt, looking for all the world like she could take both Buck _and_ Bobby in a fight without breaking a sweat—coming to a halt next to her partner. 

“Hey, Bosko,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Who’d they put you with?”

“Captain Nash,” she says, looking him over. “How’s the leg?”

“Still attached.” He shifts uncomfortably, rocks back on his heels. “I don’t like the idea of changing partners either, but Bobby’s really good, you know, you don’t have to worry about being stuck with someone who can’t cook.”

Lena levels a look at him, and the guy next to him huffs out a laugh. “Well, I feel sorry for the poor bastard stuck with Eddie,” she says, motioning to Buck’s left. “He’s only here because he lost a bet. Uses the _microwave_ to heat up frozen dinosaur chicken nuggets.”

Buck groans, but the sound dies in his throat as he turns towards Eddie, who’s grinning at him. 

“Hey,” Eddie says. “You must be the poor bastard who’s stuck with me.”

Buck has approximately thirty seconds left to get over how attractive Eddie Diaz is, with his thick waist and soft eyes and the stupid fucking way he keeps licking his bottom lip like that’s not supposed to be the biggest distraction on the planet. And it seems impossible to gather up all the desire flooding through his veins and push it all down, until Eddie goes and opens up his mouth.

“My signature dish?” he says, looking at Buck skeptically. “I’m gonna guess that those frozen chicken nuggets Lena mentioned don’t count.”

He tries to choke out something, but instead he just stares at Eddie. He supposes that there had to be some flaw to balance out all the attractiveness, but did it really have to be cooking? Couldn’t Eddie be completely inept at something else, like fashion, or home design? Buck really wouldn’t care usually, but—

“Oh, I make pretty good mac and cheese,” he offers, looking at Buck hopefully. 

“If the next words out of your mouth—”

“As long as it’s from Kraft,” Eddie adds, and Buck resists the urge to hit him with a cast iron pan. 

“Okay,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, tilting his head up, and breathing in deep. “Mac and cheese, we can use that as in inspiration—we can say you used to make it for your siblings or have a kid or something—”

“I do,” Eddie says.

Buck drops his hand and looks back down at Eddie. “You do? I love kids. Uh, how old?”

“Nine,” Eddie says. “His name is Christopher. Here, I’ll—” he pauses and frowns, patting his pockets. “I can show you a picture when we get back to the hotel, I forgot we had to leave all that stuff behind.”

The timer goes off and Buck curses. “Just stay here,” he says, and takes off for the pantry.

As far as challenges go, it’s a disaster. Buck puts Eddie in charge of the pasta, which Eddie swears he can do, while he throws together ribs for the pressure cooker and by the time he’s whisking together his personal barbeque sauce, Eddie is staring into the colander in the sink and frowning. “Hey, Buck,” he says, “are these supposed to be crunchy still?”

It gets worse from there, but luckily, they’re not the only ones having difficulty. Bobby and Lena seem to be having a passive aggressive stand-off over the sauce for their entree—

(“Orange sauce is a classic for a reason,” Bobby says patiently, pressing an orange down onto the juicer, while Lena uncaps a bottle of honey and turns it over into a sauce pan.

“Thyme infused honey and balsamic. I guarantee it’s the way to go, but sure, Captain, if you want to drag out the same old thing they see every time someone puts duck on a plate, keep juicing those oranges.”)

—someone from the 9-1-1 call center has decided to make dishwasher salmon, unaware there are no dishwashers available, and the officer Bobby had been talking to earlier is berating her partner for using too much pepper on the chicken. 

They just have to be middle of the pack, Buck reminds himself, running back into the pantry for asiago and slamming it down in front of Eddie. “Think you can manage grating this?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie says, frowning. “Is that when you chop it up tiny with the knife? Or press it really flat?” Buck stares at him, alarmed, and Eddie bursts into laughter loud enough that three teams stop what they’re doing and look over at them. “Relax, Buck. I know how to grate cheese.”

“Good,” Buck says, all the tension still rolling through his body. “Go get a microplaner and make yourself useful.”

Eddie looks at the hunk of cheese and then back at him. “Okay, I have no clue what a microplaner is,” he says sheepishly. “One of those old time graters won’t work?”

“A truck crushed my leg and this _still_ might be the most painful situation I’ve ever been in,” he snaps, and immediately regrets it by the look on Eddie’s face. “Look—I’m sorry. I’ll go get it. I’m sorry.”

Buck’s leg is killing him. He’s technically back at work, but on light duty, sitting behind a desk and running drills, auditing paperwork, inspecting buildings, and giving fire safety talks at elementary schools. He hasn’t had to stand on the thing for nine hours since his surgery, with no room to stretch (or—plenty of room to stretch, but no time to duck away; they’ve been judging food for an hour now and they’ve only gotten through a quarter of the teams, and Buck has no clue when they’re going to call him and Eddie up. 

Eddie’s looking at him though, brow furrowed as he looks Buck up and down, and Buck wonders how much he knows. They’re not supposed to be talking during the judging, but Eddie leans close and mutters, “cramp?”

He could deny it—might, if it had been Bobby, because he’s still eager to prove he can get back to his job—but there’s no point to pretending with Eddie. “More like shooting pains,” he answers quietly. “And—the bone aches, a little.”

Eddie looks around their station, then reaches for the cast iron pan that Buck had left on the stove and a dish towel. He drops the towel on the floor, turns the pan upside down, and steps on it, keeping his heels hanging over the edge and rocking back. 

Buck thinks he’s a fucking genius. 

Eddie’s hand comes up to his lower back to steady him when Buck takes his place—it’s not much of a stretch, he’s only got two inches of space to work with, but the relief is immediate. It’s an almost painful release of tension; he tries to control his face, aware that the cameras are filming their reactions. By the time they’re called up, he’s only walking with a slight limp. 

Buck hadn’t thought as far ahead as presenting the food to Chef Ramsey— _the_ Gordon Ramsey, okay, he might be a little star struck—and he’s regretting that now. They’re supposed to talk about their dish, the significance behind the food, and he’s drawing a blank. He’d gotten as far as describing the four-cheese macaroni and ribs, and then had swallowed hard and looked up at the ceiling. 

“My son’s a picky eater,” Eddie says from beside him, and Buck could kiss him. “Mac and cheese is about the only thing he’ll eat. And the ribs—well, I’m from Texas, and we like our barbecue, sir.”

“I see. And which part did you make, young man?”

He licks his bottom lip. Saying he made all of it—while true—doesn’t sit right with him, so he says, “I focused on the protein. We didn’t have too many family meals growing up, but Bobby—Captain Nash, I mean—barbecues for us at the station all the time. Me and my team got him a smoker for his last birthday and the first thing he made us was ribs.” He details what went in the sauce and holds his breath while Gordon tries it. 

“Not easy to do in a pressure cooker in an hour and a half,” he says, raising his brows. “You did good.”

Buck thinks he could die happy right there. 

Eddie’s whispering to a producer off to the side while Bobby and Lena are being judged, and before they really have a chance to get a reaction, Buck is being led to the equipment room and out a hidden door in the back—

—where a medic is waiting. 

“I’m fine,” Buck says when she opens her mouth. “I don’t know what Eddie told you—”

“Just that you might want some Tylenol,” she interrupts, and Buck stops abruptly. “Set rules say all medication goes through me, so he couldn’t just give it to you on his own.”

Fuck, he hopes Eddie can’t hear from where he’s having his discussion. “Sorry,” he says, wincing. “Yeah, I’d love some. My leg’s a little sore.”

Eddie comes over to join him when he’s halfway through the water they give him and then he’s following a short blond with radio clutched in her hand down a hallway, into one of the green rooms they had been in that morning. “You should have about an hour,” she says before she disappears, and Eddie heads towards the couch, pats his leg when Buck hesitates. 

He lays down, and breathes out a sigh the second all the weight is off his leg. He reaches down to massage it, but Eddie’s hands are already there, digging into his fingers into Buck’s scarred leg with a little hum under his breath.

“How’d you know?” Buck asks. He’s not sure if he’s asking how Eddie knew about what happened or how he figured out he was hurting, but he’s not sure it matters. 

“I uh, watched it,” Eddie says quietly. “We played it in the station that night. That’s our territory, you know—we wanted to go help but the police were telling us to stay. I kept thinking—I almost joined the 118. I could know you; maybe I could have helped.” He’s silent for a moment and then shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says, and Buck watches in fascination as a blush creeps up into his cheeks. “You’re the one that got caught under a ladder truck and I’m sitting here like it affected me. You were wincing back there in the kitchen, I figured it had to be the pressure.”

“I’m glad it was me,” Buck blurts out, without really knowing why, but that doesn’t stop him from opening his mouth and continuing. “They’ve all got families, and Chim’s dating my sister. She’s been through enough shit this year with her ex and Chim getting st—well. I’m the one that’s supposed to go first, I don’t have anyone. So I’m glad it happened to me.”

Eddie’s silent for so long that Buck pulls his chin down and looks at him, taking in the softness around Eddie’s eyes and mouth as he gazes at him. “I’m sorry you don’t feel like you have anyone,” he says, sounding so sincere that Buck’s chest aches. “But it shouldn’t have been any of you, Buck.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just watches Eddie’s hands work into the muscles in his leg, digging out the pain and tension. He keeps it up the whole time, until someone pokes their head in the door and says they’re needed back on set. “Thanks, Eddie,” he says quietly as they make their way to the kitchen. 

“Thanks for making me look good out there,” Eddie says, clapping a hand on Buck’s arm. He leaves it there for a few seconds, and Buck looks back and catches him smiling. “You could have my back any day.”

Buck grins back. “Or, you know,” he says, “you could have mine.”

They’re not eliminated. 

Eddie’s arm is firm around his waist when he hugs him, squeezing Buck closer, and Buck takes it as an excuse to throw his arms around Eddie’s shoulders and breathe him in. The wave of attraction that had crashed over him when he’d first looked at Eddie is back full-force, worse now that he knows the heat of Eddie’s hands on his skin and can only think about how to get it back. 

The departing teams are saying goodbye—Buck only knows one of them, a paramedic from station 57—and then they’re listening to a producer asking them to hang back for individual filming, being led to the green rooms, and are left on their own.

Eddie pulls Buck down on the couch again and they’re joined by Bobby and Lena a moment later; Buck closes his eyes against Bobby’s contemplative look and tries not to jump when Eddie starts rolling the leg of his pants up and pushes the palm of his hand into Buck’s calf.

He should probably tell Eddie he doesn’t need it, that the massage he gave him earlier had been enough, but Eddie’s hands are soft on his skin and more gentle than he’d been the first time, and Buck realizes with a start that Eddie _knows_ he’s not in pain anymore and he’s just … comforting him. 

So he doesn’t say anything, just listens to Lena’s story about Eddie getting his hand stuck in a drainage pipe while trying to get someone’s wedding ring after they had just cut the person free from the same position. 

“I thought I could reach it,” Eddie protests, but he’s smiling. 

“Can you tell us what you were thinking when they assigned your partner? Remember to use complete sentences, and you can talk for as long as you want.”

Samantha is looking at him expectantly; someone adjusts the ring light and Buck tries not to squint. “I was a little upset that Bobby and I weren’t working together,” Buck says. “He’s been teaching me to cook; when I started at the 118 I could barely get eggs right. My mom wasn’t the homemade meal type so having Bobby teach me has been great.” He pauses, and when they motion for him to continue, he shrugs. “Eddie doesn’t really know how to cook either, I guess, so I’m a little nervous. My sister was teasing me about doing this and I kind of want to prove I’m not completely useless.”

He fidgets a little while the camera man mutters something to the person beside him and there’s a quick consultation before lights are moved and he’s given a different chair to sit on. He had no clue about all the work that went into filming these things—everything takes so much longer than he would have thought, but they get him resettled and then he’s back in front of the camera.

“You were in the truck bombing,” Samantha says, and Buck sucks in a breath. “Can you tell us about that?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Your partner noticed that it’s still affecting you.” He stands ups, only to have Samatha step in front of him. “Okay, no more questions like that,” she says, quietly. “But it was a nice moment, and it may be used in the final cut, so if there’s anything you’re comfortable saying, we’d like to hear it.”

He sits back down and stares at the ground, unsure of what he should say. He’s been fighting to get back to his job for months, and now he’s supposed to talk about how just standing around for a few hours is too much for him? The second Bobby or anyone higher up sees this, he’s going to get stuck at a desk for years. 

“Eddie’s a good guy,” he says finally, looking up into the camera. “He’s observant and thoughtful and resourceful, so I guess if he can’t cook, it doesn’t really matter, because all that stuff is worth way more than being able to make mac and cheese. I didn’t know him before this but I hope we keep in touch.”

Samantha leans forward and grins at him. “Pretty good looking too, right?”

Buck feels his cheeks heat up and he laughs, ducking his head down as he shakes it. “Uh, yeah,” he says, looking back up when the cameraman snaps his fingers. “He’s definitely not hard to look at.”

Buck’s planned dinner with Bobby at the pizza place down the street from the hotel turns into an impromptu LAFD dinner; Eddie grabs the chair across from Buck’s, and he spends the entire night trying not to stare at him too obviously. 

From the looks he gets from both Bobby _and_ Lena, he doesn’t think he’s doing a great job.

Eddie turns towards him, standing too close, and Buck takes the opportunity to lean in even closer. “So,” Eddie says, “what are we making?”

Buck feels preemptive disappointment curling through him; he doesn’t want to get kicked out on something as simple as dessert. What 28 year old can’t produce a decent batch of cookies when asked? He thinks the best he can hope for is a box of instant pudding in the pantry. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “Bobby hasn’t taught me how to bake yet. I mostly just help with the prep and make breakfast.”

“Well, we’ll hope breakfast is the next challenge,” Eddie says, and Buck raises an eyebrow. Unless the judges accept peanut butter smeared on crackers and topped with chocolate chips as a dessert, there won’t be a next challenge. “Have you ever had tres leches?”

“Yeah, of course,” Buck says. “I spent a summer bartending in Montanita, the girls in the kitchen would bring a sheet of whatever was left of it out after closing.”

“Perfect,” Eddie says, smiling at him. The corners of his eyes crinkle up and Buck suddenly finds his hands reaching up and he presses them forcefully to his side. “It’s one of the only desserts I can make, but I can, and my son thinks it’s pretty good.”

“Just tell me what to do,” Buck says, and that’s how he ends up peeling and slicing kiwis at his station while Eddie idly stirs a mixing bowl full of liquid, cake already out of the oven and cooling. “You could help,” he says pointedly, and Eddie laughs. 

“We’ve got 40 more minutes,” he says, shrugging. “You’ve got plenty of time.” Buck snorts and reaches over to stir the simple syrup in the pot; Eddie swears this is what you do, so Buck had done it. Simple syrup is easy, and slicing kiwis—well, he’s had to do worse. Eddie hums, drawing his attention back. “Did I mention the cream is supposed to soak in for a while? And we’re supposed to cool this completely before we pour the cream on?”

Buck looks up at the remaining time, picks up a kiwi slice, and throws it at Eddie’s head. “You know kiwis aren’t going to taste good with warm cake, don’t you?”

“Oops,” Eddie says, and grins at him.

“Warm tres leches,” Aaron says, looking at both of them, “with no topping.”

Buck watches as Eddie lifts his hand up to the back of his neck and looks at the judges sheepishly. “Yeah, abuela is going to have some words for me when she sees this, I think.”

Aaron chuckles. “That was a bold choice, making a cake that needs to soak overnight when you only had an hour and a half.” He picks up a fork and digs in—Buck holds his breath as Aaron slices through the peaches Eddie had carefully layered on top and drags it through the caramel he’d swirled on the plate with unsteady hands. “Not what I imagine when I think of tres leches,” he says after a moment, “but the flavors are there. It might have been better to use ramekins to bake in so you could have cooled it faster and had more time for the leche to soak in, but overall it’s good.” He looks over at Eddie and winks, then directs his gaze to a camera. “So go easy on him, abuela.”

There’s a knock at the door just as Buck gets out of the shower; and he opens it, expecting Bobby coming to get him for dinner—but it’s Eddie standing in front of his door, and from the way he licks his bottom lip when his gaze drops down, Buck is pretty sure he knows exactly what’s going to happy, and all he can think is _thank God, finally_. Standing next to Eddie all day had been torture, because Eddie had been so tactile, reaching out and touching Buck’s arms and brushing up against him as they crossed each other at their station. 

But more than that, Eddie pulled a producer aside in the morning, right when they stumbled in at 5:45am, and the next thing Buck knew, there was a step stool placed near their spot so he could do calf stretches when his leg bothered him. 

Buck is used to being looked at—but he’s not so familiar with being cared for.

He opens the door wider and steps back, letting it swing closed when Eddie follows him into the room. “Hey,” Eddie says, holding up a small take-out box. “I thought you might like some real tres leches.”

Not exactly what his mouth is watering for, but Buck’s never been one to turn down free dessert and he’s not going to start now. He sits on the edge of his bed and looks up at Eddie, traces the lines of broad shoulders down to his hips with his eyes while Eddie opens the box and—

Buck thinks he might have actually died when Eddie pulls off a piece of the cool, sweet cake with his fingers and holds it out to him; he reaches out and pulls Eddie closer by a belt loop and tilts his head up, closing his lips around Eddie’s fingers and wrapping a hand around his wrist, holding it in place so he can pull back to swallow the cake before flicking his tongue out and licking the whipped cream left behind. 

Eddie drops the box on the floor and reaches behind him, pulling his shirt over his head, and Buck is being pressed down onto the bed, Eddie with his knees on either side of Buck’s thighs. Buck reaches for him, slides an arm around Eddie’s waist and pulls him down, let’s his hands roam over the biceps he’s been staring at all day while they kiss. Any thoughts he’d had about this being quick and dirty go right out the window with the way Eddie kisses him, like he’s determined to find different ways to make Buck moan just with his tongue in his mouth, biting at Buck’s bottom lip before he pulls back and presses a quick kiss to the side of his mouth, and then does it all again. Buck isn’t sure how much time passes with Eddie kissing him, one hand cupped around the back of his neck, but it’s long enough that he’s so hard he shudders when the thin towel that was wrapped around his waist finally comes undone against the way Eddie’s hips move against against his, and his cock brushes against Eddie’s skin. 

Eddie pushes himself up to his knees and Buck watches how he looks down at him, Eddie’s gaze lingering on his chest and hips before he pops the buttons on his jeans open. “Fuck, you’re pretty, you know that?” 

He tugs Eddie’s jeans down, hands on the waistband, catching his boxers along with them and pulling until they’re mid-thigh and Eddie’s falling back against him, and with the first roll of his hips, Buck almost forgets his own name. “Am not _pretty_ ,” he gasps out, and Eddie nudges his head and bites down on his neck. 

“You are,” Eddie says. His tongue drags along Buck’s jaw, hands holding his hips down as they slide against each other. “Your lips,” he says, “your eyes—you’re fucking pretty, Buck. Bet you’d look prettier on your knees for me.”

He can’t help the whine that comes from him at that, and he nearly loses his goddamn mind when he reaches in between them only to have Eddie’s fingers wrap around his wrist and pull his arm over his head, pinning it to the bed. “Next time,” Buck says; he’s not gonna last long, not with Eddie whispering in his ear like that. “I’ll suck you off next time, you can fuck my mouth—”

Eddie cuts him off with a kiss, hips grinding down harder, and it’s so fucking perfect, his cock sliding against Eddie’s, the heavy, insistent way Eddie is pressing his body down, the way he swears under his breath before biting Buck’s earlobe and sucking it into his mouth. “Knew you wanted it,” he says, panting into Buck’s ear. “Knew you’d be good to me, fuck, come on.”

Buck twists his head, presses his mouth against Eddie’s and pulls one of his legs over the back of Eddie’s thighs. The noise Eddie makes, the way he moans Buck’s name and flexes his fingers around the wrist that’s still pinned to the bed—it sends Buck over the edge and he comes, using his leg to pull Eddie closer as he crunches in on himself. Eddie’s free hand digs into his hair, pulling at him, and Buck feels Eddie’s mouth working against his neck and collarbone as he pants his way through his orgasm. 

It’s quiet in the aftermath; Eddie kisses along his jaw and finally back up to his lips, letting go of Buck’s wrist and cupping his cheek. “I did this all wrong,” he says quietly, sounding sheepish. “I came in here to ask you out to dinner. Just, uh, you and me tonight.”

Buck laughs and ignores the way his heart expands in his chest, already promising him a future that Eddie hasn’t offered. “Is this dinner as partners, or—” he trails off, wanting to be _sure_ but not entirely knowing what to say.

“Well,” Eddie says, ducking back in to kiss him with a smile playing on his lips, “I hear I’m supposed to buy a guy dinner before he sucks my dick.”

Buck gropes around behind him for a pillow, curls his fingers around the case, and brings it down on Eddie’s head.

There are two things in the mystery box: eggs, and flour. 

Buck’s not even sure why he looks to Eddie, who is surely just as confused as he is, but Eddie just gives him an easy smile and bumps their shoulders together.

“Pasta,” Joe says, and Buck groans.

Buck follows two things: recipes, and Bobby. That’s really the extent of his cooking knowledge. He’d muddled his way through the first challenge simply because mac and cheese is forgiving and he’d made the barbecue sauce at the station so many times he might be able to do it in his sleep. 

But now he’s staring at the carefully stacked boxes of colorful vegetables in the pantry with a sinking feeling in his stomach, because the only thing he really knows how to do is red sauce, which takes much, much longer than the hour they’ve been allotted.

So he does what he always does, and turns to Bobby. 

“Help,” he says, holding up a bulb of garlic and an onion. “Bobby, I’m out of my depth here, I don’t know what to do.” It’s not exactly in the spirit of the show to get help from the people you’re competing against, but Buck isn’t above it. “Fish? I could do fish, right? Uh, something white?”

Bobby takes the onion from his hand and sets it down in a crate of eggplants. “What do you always order when we go out Palermo?”

He looks around and grabs a bunch of asparagus. “You’re a genius, Bobby. Thanks.”

“Roast the garlic first,” Bobby calls on his way out of the pantry. 

Their shrimp scampi is—well, it’s okay, Buck thinks. He’d certainly eat the whole plate, and he thinks Eddie’s eaten at least a dozen shrimp on his own, and fed one to Buck, his fingers catching on Buck’s bottom lip as he wiped a spot of white wine sauce away.

Maddie will tease him for ages if that ends up on the show.

But it’s not a surprise when they’re eliminated after that challenge, and he says so in his confessional after everything is said and done. They ask him questions about Bobby, about his whole team, and he’s not exactly surprised when they move on to the topic of Eddie, but—

“The two of you seemed closer today,” Samantha says, leaning forward. 

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “We get along pretty well.”

“Eddie told us you two went on a date last night,” she presses, and when he looks over at her, startled, she’s smiling softly at him. “You think there will be another?”

“I—yeah,” he says, and looks away when she motions to the camera. “Eddie asked me on a date last night and it was—good. It was really good. Once we get outta here I’m gonna see if he wants to go out again.”

“Have anything planned yet?”

The text he sends Eddie is just a link; a page on the website of a kitchen store that advertises their cooking classes. Their next series is Italian, and as soon as he saw the dishes listed, he knew he had to stop waiting around for Eddie to text him and reach out himself.

(It’s only been 24 hours, but—Buck’s impatient, and a tiny bit insecure.)

Eddie’s name pops up on his phone immediately, and Buck connects to the call.

“That’s a month from now,” Eddie says as soon as Buck greets him. “I have to wait that long for a second date?”

Buck blows out a breath and smiles. “I’m free the rest of the week,” he offers. “You say the word.”

There’s a long pause and just as he’s about to start overthinking, Eddie says, “I don’t really know how to date someone, especially with Chris around, but—would you like to come to the park with us this afternoon? Just as a friend. This kid is my whole life, Buck, I can’t—I can’t keep this going if you don’t like him.”

Buck doubts that’s a possibility at all. “The park sounds great, Eddie. As friends. I’ll keep my hands to myself, promise.”

Eddie sounds relieved when he laughs and says, “well, maybe not all the way to yourself. I’ll text you when and where.”

“Sounds good,” Buck says, standing up—he’s not sure what in his closet screams _I’d make a great stepdad_ , but if it’s in there, he’ll find it. 

“Great,” Eddie says, right before Buck’s about to hang up, “I’ll bring the dinosaur chicken nuggets.”

“Eddie, don’t you dare,” he says, and Eddie’s laughter is the last thing he hears before the call cuts off.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ [hearteyesforbuck](http://hearteyesforbuck.tumblr.com)


End file.
